The Man Who Bought London Read Online

Bewildered as she was, half inclined to laugh, with the old suspicion as to his sanity recurring, she knew that immense issues hung upon those meaningless words—"Kingsway needs Paving."

    At the moment when Elsie was being initiated into the mysteries of King Kerry's office, two men sat at breakfast in the sumptuous dining-room of Mr. Leete's flat in Charles Street.

    One of these was the redoubtable Leete himself, in a dressing-gown of flowered silk, and the other the young-looking Mr. Hermann Zeberlieff. He was a man of thirty-eight, but had one of those faces which defy the ravages of time and the consequence of excess.

    Leete and he were friends. They had met in Paris in the days when Millionaire Zeberlieff's name was in every paper as the man who had cornered wheat.

    They had something in common, these two men, and when a Wall Street syndicate had smashed the corner, ruining hundreds of small speculators, but leaving Hermann Zeberlieff ten times over a dollar millionaire, Leete had accompanied the young man on the yachting cruise which the execration of the American public and the virulence of the Press had made advisable, and the friendship ripened.

    Later Millionaire Zeberlieff was to court publicity more disastrously to himself, and the operations of the "L Trust" were to rob him of half his fortune. They were talking of money now. It was a subject which absorbed both men.

    "You're a pretty rich man yourself, aren't you, Leete?"

    Zeberlieff put the question in a tone that suggested that he was not particular whether he was answered or not.

    "Fairly," admitted the unprepossessing Mr. Leete.

    "A millionaire?"

    Leete nodded.

    "Then why the devil did you sell Kerry your store?" asked the other in astonishment.

    Mr. Leete's face puckered into a grin.

    "There was a bigger store next door," he said cheerfully. "Goulding's were doing twice the trade—taking all our customers, and prospering. They've got the best position—street corner and a double show of shop fronts. That's why!"

    "But why hasn't he bought Goulding's?"

    The smile on Mr. Leete's face was expressive.

    "Goulding's won't sell. He bought the land and is ground landlord, but he can't disturb Goulding's because they've eighty years' lease to run."

    Zeberlieff whistled.

    "That will upset him," he said with satisfaction.

    "As a matter of fact, Tack and Brighton's is a dying concern," Mr. Leete went on frankly. "Unless he can buy Goulding's he's as good as lost his money. Goulding's will sell—at a price."

    He winked.

    "By the way," he said suddenly, "did you hear that Kerry had been attacked in the public street—shot at?" The other nodded. "Well, the man that shot at him is dead!"

    Zeberlieff raised his eyebrows.

    "Indeed!"

    Mr. Leete nodded.

    "Apparently he was mad drunk when he got to the station, and when one of his pals sent him in a mug of coffee the police let him have it—thought it would sober him."

    "And did it?" asked the other without any great show of interest.

    Mr. Leete nodded again.

    "It killed him—cyanide of potassium in the coffee. My doctor," he paused and raised his voice ever so little, "my doctor, Sir John Burcheston, who happened to be passing, was called in, and he told me all about it."

    "Extraordinary!" said Mr. Zeberlieff, obviously bored. "How did it get to him?"

    "I don't know—they found the boy who brought the coffee, but he says he was sent by a stranger who can't be found."

    "Sounds thrilling," said Zeberlieff coolly.

    "Thought you'd be interested," said the other.

    "I'm more interested in your deal with Kerry. Didn't he know that Goulding's wouldn't sell?" asked Zeberlieff incredulously; "it doesn't seem possible!"

    "He thinks he has got a bargain," chuckled the other. "We knocked the prices down and put the profits up—your Trust folk aren't as clever as they pretend."

    But Zeberlieff shook his head. "If you underrate the ability of the 'Big L,'" he said seriously, "you're going to nose trouble—that's all. King Kerry smells the value of property just as crows scent carrion: he doesn't make mistakes."

    Leete looked up at the other, showing his yellow teeth in a sneer.

    "If I'm speaking disparagingly of a friend of yours—" he began.

    The plump baby-face of Zeberlieff went a dull red and his eyes glittered ominously.

    "A friend of mine?" he cried savagely. "A friend of mine—Leete, I hate that man so much that I'm afraid of myself! I hate the look of him and the sound of his voice: I hate him, and yet he fascinates me."

    He strode rapidly up and down the long room.

    "Do you know," he asked, stopping suddenly in his walk, "that I often follow him for hours on end—dog his footsteps literally, for no other reason than because I hate him so much that I cannot let him out of my sight?" His face was pale now; his hands, moist with perspiration, were clenched till the knuckles showed whitely. "You think I'm mad—but you don't know the fascination of hate. I hate him, my God, how I hate him!"

    He hissed the last words between his clenched teeth.